I have been running an EX495 for about 3.5 years now. I have seen odd times where a backup might not run on a given night (various reasons). But, over the last 6 weeks or so, backups seem very irregular. I have been having email conversations with Martin in Germany (Lights Out addin) who says from looking at the server logs that backups seem to be being taken more often than the WHS Console indicates in the backup window (maybe so, but would be of no help if I needed to restore from a night not "logged" in the WHS Console backup window).

This seems to have started happening when Gloria_2014 was put on the backup schedule (this is the first Win 8.1 PC here) although why that should make a difference I don't know. I have a table that I keep in MS Word and tried clipping it into the post below (although pasting a table or even "spaced" text from Word doesn't work in a forum post for whatever reason). A similar log kept last month showed a similar oddity about the backup regularity. Has anyone else seen backups being irregular like this? If so, would you share any reasons behind it? As I said for most of the 3.5 years I have run the EX495 (WHS V1) I have not seen this.

So, I have 4 PCs
Gloria_2014 (Win8.1)
Gloria_Laptop (Vista)
Kevin_2010 (Win7)
Kevin_Notebook (Win XP)

The backup window is set to be 03:00 to 06:00

On 6/1 backups were taken for all 4 PCs
On 6/2 Only Kevin_2010 and Kevin_Notebook took backups
On 6/3 the server was powered off
On 6/4 Only Kevin_2010 and Kevin_Notebook took backups
On 6/5 Kevin_2010 did NOT take a backup, the rest did
On 6/6 Gloria_Laptop and Kevin_Notebook took backups, the other two didn't
On 6/7 Kevin_2010 did NOT take a backup, the rest did
On 6/8 Only Kevin_2010 and Kevin_Notebook took backups


Really kinda odd.

Kevin

_________________
ASUSTOR AS6204T, 12 TB RAID-5 over three drive bays (3 * 4TB HGST drives), 2TB Fantom Esata backup drive

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." [Attributed to L. P. "Yogi" Berra]

I have never put my server to sleep I just let it run but I have people who access my server night and day too so its not really possible.

Anyway your backup window is long enough to handle 4 clients. This is predicated that the server indeed wakes up in a timely manor and is able to wake the clients up for the backup to occur. I am assuming everything is sleeping and everything must be woken up. I suppose the best way to troubleshoot it is to watch the process but 3-6 in the morning is a hard one so for troubleshooting purposes you may want to set things up so they go to sleep while your up so you can observe the process and see if the server is waking up in a timely manor and if the clients are being woke up properly by the server. I think this will be your best way to actually troubleshoot this issue.

Anyway for the time being if the backups are not taking place then you might perform a manual backup before you head to bed or after you wake up. This will give you piece of mind while you troubleshoot this rather annoying issue.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

My server gets lighter use than yours <g>. So, I tend to sleep it when not being used using the Lights Out client. BTW, Martin (who wrote the Lights Out addin) has been helping me (via email) with this issue (even though it doesn't seem related to Lights Out ). His support has been EXCELLENT. Lights Out is a really neat piece of addin software. Even Martin doesn't quite understand why the backups are kinda irregular as he pointed out that (from server logs) more backups "seem" to be being taken than is reflected in the WHS client itself.

I had thought of switching the backup times but don't think that would work as the PCs are quite often in use during waking hours and not "slept" all the time, so it would not mirror the circumstances of doing backup overnight (where all the PCs are sleeping). In fact, the laptop and netbook are sleeping almost all of the time.

On 6/6, I changed the backup window start from 03:00 to 02:00. This morning I started adding the backup times to my Word document that I started keeping on the backup issue and noticed that I had a couple of backups noted as taken when they were not for the "notebook". However, they are still irregular.

This morning, the backups were finished by 03:37 (windows set to start at 02:00) although Gloria_2014 did not backup.

BTW, why can't I post a "columnized" type piece of text in the window here (fixed point Courier New font) without all the spaces being removed?

Kevin

_________________
ASUSTOR AS6204T, 12 TB RAID-5 over three drive bays (3 * 4TB HGST drives), 2TB Fantom Esata backup drive

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." [Attributed to L. P. "Yogi" Berra]

I would opt to run a manual backup to see how long it takes. This will not disturb your current backup process but I think you will see it really doesn't take long. You could call up a manual backup just before you sit down for dinner and by the time your done they should all be done. This will give you piece of mind while you troubleshoot the issue.

Happy to see your getting good support from Martin. Hard to come by these days for sure.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Having checked some more with backups on my WHS (I kept a log for the last 3 months or so), I'm pretty well convinced that if a Windows update is pending (I do NOT do automatic updates for Windows) then WHS backup does not run.

I really wish that WHS backup or the WHS connnector had some way of notifying you that backup was not run due to a pending Windows update.

Maybe my comments here will help someone else.

K

_________________
ASUSTOR AS6204T, 12 TB RAID-5 over three drive bays (3 * 4TB HGST drives), 2TB Fantom Esata backup drive

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." [Attributed to L. P. "Yogi" Berra]

I assume updates means the clients.
Since the server updates are very infrequent now.
Probably the win8.1 client is what is causing it.
I see some very large updates on a regular basis for win 8.1. currently.
Maybe you could temporally fix the issue by changing the time client updates are performed versus backups are performed.
I had a similar issue with my internet security running scans at the same time as the backups.
It was just taking to long between the two running at the same time, so it would just time out.
Seemed like the virus scan took precedence over the backups.
So I can only assume that updates do the same.

_________________
VGA/PS2 Keyboard/PS2 Mouse/Serial debug board
Popcorn C-200
Popcorn A-200
Dune HD Connect
Rasberry PI OSMC(KODI)
ReadyNAS RN316
Amazon FireStick
Amazon ECHO
AnyDvD
MyMovies

Hey Ruben,

Yes, I mean the clients Win Updates.

Don't think so about Win 8.1 updates causing it. I have 1 PC running XP, one on Vista, one on Win7 and two on Win8.1. Sometimes I am sitting in my office on the Win7 PC (backup window is 15:00 to 17:00 currently) and it doesn't even try to start a backup. It was even more unreliable when I ran backups from 03:00 to 06:00. Certainly I have seen the Vista PC (which is in the garage and used to drive RC battery charging) so not looked at very often and see it waiting on a Windows update. After I do that, backups start running again. I have seen that also on my new Win8.1 HP laptop.

Part of the issue is that I don't let Windows updates automatically install. I like to know when they run and kick the updates off manually. Update checks are done at 03:00 on the Win7 PC.

Malwarebytes scan and update window does not conflict with WHS client backups.

The Vista laptop is on it's way out soon, so the backups will get a little less complicated. Once I decommission the Vista PC and beat the crap out of the hard drive (I wish I could find a hard drive shredding company around here), that laptop gets thrown away - just too damned slow.

Regards,

Kevin

_________________
ASUSTOR AS6204T, 12 TB RAID-5 over three drive bays (3 * 4TB HGST drives), 2TB Fantom Esata backup drive

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." [Attributed to L. P. "Yogi" Berra]

I don't know the specific time MS sends out their updates but its always Tue Night/Wed Morning when my server starts telling me about client updates needing to be installed. I typically see these on Wed mornings if updates are sent out.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Your server tells you that client updates need to be installed? I assume that you use the 2011 version as I have never seen WHS V1 tell me that.

Certainly MS is known for "Patch Tuesday", as for the time...not sure...overnight sometime.

EDIT1
According to Wikipedia...."As far as the integrated Windows Update (WU) function is concerned, Patch Tuesday begins at 18:00 or 17:00 UTC (10:00 PST (UTC-8) or 10:00 PDT (UTC-7))."

EDIT2
Are you using Tentacle Software notifier?
See http://www.tentaclesoftware.com/Items/W ... upNotifier

EDIT3
If you are using the notifier above.....(mine doesn't seem to work), can you check your config file against mine below (maybe I have done something wrong?). I setup a scheduled task on the server to run the notifier. Is there anywhere to look to see error messages? I didn't see anything obvious on the server event viewer.

-->
<smtp
smtpServer="smtp.live.com"
smtpEnableSsl="false"
smtpPort="587"
smtpSubject="KRE Home Server Client Backup States"
smtpMailFrom="kevmeist@outlook.com"
smtpMailTo="kevmeist@outlook.com"
smtpDebugCcTo=""
smtpAuthentication="true"
smtpAuthUser="kevmeist"
smtpAuthPass="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
smtpTimeOut="100000"/>
<whsConfiguration
maxServiceWaitTime="1"
convertTimesToLocal="true"/>

Thanks

K

_________________
ASUSTOR AS6204T, 12 TB RAID-5 over three drive bays (3 * 4TB HGST drives), 2TB Fantom Esata backup drive

"In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is." [Attributed to L. P. "Yogi" Berra]

Sorry I should of mentioned it was my WS2012E Server was sending the update notifications.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8